Then, taking up a dumpling in his hand, His eyes with admiration did expand,
And oft did Majesty the dumpling grapple: "'Tis monstrous, monstrous hard indeed (he cried); What makes it, pray, so hard?" The dame replied, Low curtsying, "Please, your Majesty, the apple."
"Very astonishing indeed! Strange thing! (Turning the dumpling round, rejoined the King) 'Tis most extraordinary, then, all this is;
It beats Pinetti's conjuring all to pieces; Strange I should never of a dumpling dream ! But, Goody, tell me where, where, where's the seam?"
"Sir, there's no seam (quoth she); I never knew That folks did apple-dumplings sew." "No (cried the staring monarch with a grin), How, how the devil got the apple in?"
On which the dame the curious scheme revealed, By which the apple lay so sly concealed,
Which made the Solomon of Britain start; Who to the Palace with full speed repaired, And Queen and Princesses so beauteous scared,
All with the wonders of the dumpling art. There did he labour one whole week to show The wisdom of an apple-dumpling maker; And, lo! so deep was Majesty in dough, The Palace seemed the lodging of a baker.
On a stone thrown at a very great man, but which missed him
ALK no more of the lucky escape of the head From a flint so unluckily thrown;
I think very different with thousands indeed- 'Twas a lucky escape for the stone.
The Hare and the Bramble.
JAMES NORTHCOTE, R.A. (1746-1831), born at Plymouth, in his later years published two collections of fables. "The Hare and the Bramble" is among them.
HARE, closely pursued, thought it prudent and meet
To a bramble for refuge awhile to retreat.
He entered the covert; but, entering, found That briars and thorns did on all sides abound; And that though he was safe, yet he never could stir, But his sides they would wound, or would tear off his fur. He shrugged up his shoulders, but would not complain: "To repine at small evils," quoth puss, "is in vain ; That no bliss can be perfect I very well know, But from the same source good and evil both flow; And full sorely my skin though these briars may rend, Yet they keep off the dogs, and my life will defend." For the sake of the good then let evil be borne; For each sweet has its bitter, each bramble its thorn.
Descriptions of Devonshire Scenery.
REV. JOHN BIDLAKE, D.D. (1751-1814), a native of Plymouth, became master of the Grammar School in that town, and held the position of Bampton lecturer in 1811. The quotations are from his Year, published in 1813.
OW grateful now to trace the devious course Of some wild pastoral stream, that changes oft Its varied lapse, and ever as it winds Enchantment follows, and new beauties rise. Such thou, delightful Devon, hast to boast, And such Cornubia-wild, romantic, both. 'Mid mountains rude, 'mid shadowy winding vales Where streams melodiously in murmurs talk, Or hoarse cascades to dreary solitudes And nodding crags and rugged dales resound, While latent echoes swell the solemn roar:
Such, Dart, thy rapid stream ! thine, silver Plym! Wild Teign, or Tamar, whose far-sweeping flood The sister counties laves!
Where Tamar ocean joins with wedded waves Mount Edgcumbe lifts his tree-clad rocks on high. There groves on groves ascend, of every hue
And every growth; the gloomy pine, the oak, The melancholy cypress, and the fir,
And all whose ever-living verdure scorns E'en winter's darkest frown. Sweet interchange !- Deep shade and sunny lawn-where fallow deer With spotted sides disport; now browse in herds The fragrant turf, now rustling through the glade, Climb the high summit. What a glorious scene! See ocean's blue expanse! How lightly glide Yon barks! How proudly on the subject waves. Britannia's navy rides, that waits the call
To future triumphs! See, what rocky shores ! What castled cliffs arise! what towns and docks! What rural sights, with rivers sparkling clear, While mountains in the distance blend with sky!
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How sweet to fly the fervours of the sun, And trace thy lucid steps, romantic Plym, Up to the secret source, whence, stealing first, Thy coy wave ventures to the day's broad beam. See, bosomed deep in woody glens, and dark, The silent stream creeps unperceived along Its pebbled bottom, by the steepy bank, And many an aged tree with twisted roots And rugged boughs o'erhung. Where Sheepstor lifts His towering height, what troublous cataracts dash Adown the lichened rocks! Again the tide, Stealing through Meavy's ivy-rocked bridge, Flows rippling o'er a clear, unquiet bed.
What various tints of mosses, green or brown,
Or lichen hoary, or refulgent robed, The antique limbs of yonder oak adorn ! How clear the lucid crystal of the stream! Below the willowy-fringed bank, what shoals Blacken the watery waste, myriads minute ! And where the giddy eddy winds his foam The trout, bedropp'd with scarlet, lurks concealed; Swift-darting through the solemn, shadowed pool,
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Meavy, where flourished once illustrious Drake, Who, drawing from the Naiad's copious urn, Taught the young stream to wind beside the hill, High o'er the vale, while Plymouth's distant sons Drank pure libations from the wandering lymph. Hark, how the river roars! What waving woods Outstretch their quivering foliage o'er the wave, Now lost beneath, now glittering with the rays Of sparkling light! See! now it meets yon rock Precipitous, yon crag with beetling brow, With ashlings thick bestrewn, fixed in the clefts, The orphans of the wood. High o'er the vale Thy forehead, Dewerstone, enwrapped in clouds, Frowns dark, while boiling at thy craggy feet A sister torrent foams down steeps immense, Till both, united, claim the name of Plym, And, mingled, flow through Bickleigh's beauteous vale.
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